The fighting broke out Saturday evening when militants thought to be al-Qaida members attacked the United Arab Emirates-backed Shabwa Defense Forces near the town of al-Musnaiya in southern Shabwa province with machine guns, two tribal leaders and a military official said. The three spoke on condition of anonymity.

They said the gunbattle in the oil-rich province lasted for several hours, killing two Shabwa Defense Forces fighters and one militant before the militants finally withdrew.

Yemen’s ruinous civil war began in 2014 when the Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital of Sanaa and much of northern Yemen and forced the government into exile. A Saudi-led coalition including the UAE intervened in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognized government to power.

Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, also known by its acronym AQAP, is active in several regions of wartorn Yemen, including Shabwa and other far-flung provinces and is considered to be one of the more dangerous branches of the terror network.

A prominent member of al-Qaida, Hamad bin Hamoud al-Tamimi, was killed in February in a suspected U.S. drone attack.

Amid years of chaos and conflict, the militant group has cemented a strong foothold in areas of the country, particularly in the remote east and south of the Arab nation.

The conflict in Yemen has killed over 150,000 people, including over 14,500 civilians, according to The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, creating one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

There has been a lull in the fighting since a six-month cease-fire agreement was reached in April 2022. The truce expired in October 2022, however, back-channel negotiations between Saudi and Houthi officials have been ongoing for months.

The Muslim Brotherhood association with the Qatari regime helped accelerate the MB plans, thanks to the limitless funds by Qatar.

The 9/11 attacks of September 2001 were not a single secluded event, the attacks tie into past and present events, and the players who believe in the extremist Islamist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood and Sayed Qutb.

Among the strongest believers in the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood was the Iranian Supreme leader Imam AlKhomeini.

The image below shows the love and cooperation between Sayed Qutb and Mahabati Nawab Safawi who was one of the most important players in the Khomeinist revolution.

Now you can see that the Sufi Muslim Brotherhood and the Shiite Iranian regime were never enemies, in fact they were best of friends, unlike how they are shown to be in the main stream media.

The Pan Arab Baathism, PLO, Mufti Husayni’s Arab Nazis and Socialist all are linked to the Muslim Brotherhood in very complex ways and relationships of power structures that are built on hate and ideas of racial, religious and sectarian supremacy.

By early 1999, Al-Qaeda was already a potent adversary of the United States, but since the early 90s both Saudi Arabia and Egypt who are America’s allies in the Middle East were the main targets of this terrorist group in the Middle East.

Osama Bin Laden and his chief of operations, Abu Hafs al Masri, also known as Mohammed Atef, occupied undisputed leadership positions atop Qaeda’s organizational structure.

Within this structure, Qaeda’s worldwide terrorist operations relied heavily on the ideas and work of enterprising and strong-willed field commanders who enjoyed considerable autonomy.

To understand how the organization worked and to introduce the origins of the 9/11 plot, I briefly examined three of these subordinate commanders: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) 9/11, Riduan Isamuddin (better known as Hambali) Bali bombing, and Abd al Rahim al Nashiri USS Cole.

We will focus on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the so-called chief leader of the “planes operations”. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, no one exemplifies the model of the terrorist fanatic leader more clearly than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The principal architect of the 9/11 attacks.

KSM followed a rather tortuous path to his eventual membership in Al-Qaeda. KSM a highly educated and equally comfortable in a government office job in Qatar and a terrorist asset to the Qatari regime at the time.

KSM applied his sick and twisted imagination, technical aptitude, and administrative skills to hatching and planning an extraordinary array of terrorist schemes.

These ideas included conventional car bombing, political assassinations, aircraft bombing, hijacking, reservoir poisoning, smuggling Al-Qaeda key members into other countries using Qatari passports and, ultimately, the use of aircraft as missiles guided by suicide soldiers.

Like his nephew Ramzi Yousef (three years KSM’s junior), KSM grew up in Kuwait but traces his ethnic lineage to the Baluchistan region straddling Iran and Pakistan. Raised in a religious family, KSM joined the Muslim Brotherhood at age 16.

KSM and Ramzi both became enamored of violent jihadist ideology at youth camps in the Kuwaiti desert organized by the Muslim Brotherhood of Kuwait in the early 80s.

KSM left Kuwait to enroll at Chowan College, a small Baptist school in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. After a semester at Chowan, KSM transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University in Greensboro, which he attended with Yousef’s brother.

KSM earned a degree in mechanical engineering in December 1986. Although he apparently did not attract attention for extreme Islamist beliefs or activities while in the United States. KSM plunged into the anti-Soviet Afghan Jihad soon after graduating from college.

Visiting Pakistan for the first time in early 1987, he traveled to Peshawar, where his brother Zahid introduced him to the famous Afghan Mujahid Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, head of the Hizbul-Ittihad El-Islami (Islamic Union Party).

The Hamas Connection—Sayyaf became KSM’s mentor and provided KSM with military training at Sayyaf’s Sada camp. KSM claims he then fought the Soviets and remained at the front for three months before being summoned to perform administrative duties for Abdullah Azzam.

KSM then took a job working for an electronics firm that catered to the communications needs of Afghan groups, where he learned about drills used to excavate caves in Afghanistan.

Between 1988 and 1992, KSM helped run a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Peshawar and Jalalabad, sponsored by Sayyaf. He was finally in, as a man the Islamists can trust and invest in his ambitious and successful business practices.

NGO’s play a significant role in the financing and logistics support for terrorist organizations. NGO’s is a tool in the arsenal of terrorism that yet to be successfully controlled by world governments fighting terrorism because of how complex they tend to be.

The NGO, KSM worked for was designed to aid young Afghan mujahideen. In 1992, KSM spent some time fighting alongside the mujahideen in Bosnia and supporting that effort with financial donations. After returning briefly to Pakistan, he moved his family to Qatar.

The rise of the new terrorist dynamic, Qatar, Iran and Muslim Brotherhood Europe setup for the domain of the Middle East and the world

KSM finally found his calling and moved to Qatar at the suggestion of his good friend the former minister of Islamic affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Abdallah bin Khalid bin Hamad al Thani who saw the huge potential of KSM as a power piece to further expand the Qatari influence.

KSM took a position in Qatar as project engineer with the Qatari Ministry of Electricity and Water, in what was a clear cover job for KSM. KSM engaged in extensive international travel during his tenure at the ministry much of it in furtherance of terrorist activity.

KSM used his position to expand the Qatari network of “NGO’s” and would hold his position there until early 1996, when he fled to Pakistan with the aid of the Qatari government to avoid capture by U.S. authorities.

After Hamad Bin Khalifa assumed role in Qatar a huge spike in terrorism around the Middle East and the world spiked, the Muslim Brotherhood association with the Qatari regime helped accelerate the MB plans, thanks to the limitless funds by Qatar.

The first attack on American soil was carried by the Palestinian 69-year-old Palestinian immigrant Ali Hassan Abu Kamal opened fire on the observation deck of the Empire State Building killing a Danish musician and injuring six other people before committing suicide.

The Mostar attack that was carried out by Al-Qaeda, and targeted Croatian civilians and policemen as retribution against the Croatian Defence Council (HVO), which had fought Muslim forces for control of the city during the Bosnian War.

In Deir el-Bahari, Egypt, six Islamist gunmen from the MB military arm Gamaat Alislam Iya massacred 58 foreign tourists and four Egyptians at the Temple of Hatshepsut.

Uyghyr separatists bombed three buses in Ürümqi, killing nine people, including three children, and injuring 74. Another bomb was found at Ürümqi’s main railway station but was defused.

Coimbatore bombings took place in 1998 in India. 13 bombs exploded over the course of two hours in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, killing 58 people. The bombs were planted by Islamic extremists Al Ummah organization and were meant to target Hindus as well as Hindu nationalist leader L.K. Advani.

Two United States Embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania were bombed by members of Al-Qaeda and the Egyptian Islamic Jihad an Muslim Brotherhood affiliate. 224 people were killed in the blasts (213 in Nairobi, 11 in Dar es Salaam) and over 4,000 people were wounded.

According to the Federal Security Service, the bombings utilized a mechanical mixture of Aluminium powder and Ammonia nitrate as the explosive.

Hezbollah’s favorite bombing method and one of their most commonly used to carry on attacks.

The terrorists have received instruction in training centers run by Khattab and Basayev in Chechnya.

1999 Tashkent bombings: Six car bombs targeting government buildings and Uzbek president Islam Karimov exploded over the course of an hour and a half.

1999 Jessore bombings: Islamist group Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami used two time bombs to attack Bangladesh Udichi Shilpigoshthi, killing 10 people and injuring another 150.

The paradigm shift in terrorism, the Muslim Brotherhood worldwide efforts are aligned: The target is America

In December 1999–January 2000. Hambali accommodated KSM’s requests to help several veterans whom KSM had just finished training in Karachi Pakistan.

They included Tawfiq bin Attash, also known as Khallad a handler who organize, recruit and carry on directive and administrative roles for Al-Qaeda attacks, he later would help bomb the USS Cole, and the future 9/11 hijackers Nawaf al Hazmi and Khalid al Mihdhar.

A three-day-long meeting was held in the hotel room of Yazid Sufaat, a former Malaysian Army captain and businessman, in a hotel in Kuala Lumpur.

The summit’s purpose was to plan future attacks, which included the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and the 11 September 2001 attack plot. The attendance consisted of Arab veterans of the Soviet–Afghan War.

Among the most notable was Hambali a Pakistani senior leader of Al-Qaeda, Ramzi bin al-Shibh a Yemeni, and a “key facilitator for the September 11 attacks”, Nawaf al-Hazmi a Saudi fighter, Khalid al-Mihdhar a Yemeni-Saudi fighter, and Tawfiq bin Attash a handler for Al-Qaeda.

Before the meeting, the United States intercepted a telephone call to Yemen by al-Mihdhar concerning arrangements for the trip. Osama bin Laden had called that number dozens of times.

On request of the CIA, the Malaysian authorities videotaped the meeting, but no sound recordings were made. Are you frigging kidding me?

The men were also photographed when they came out of the meeting. American investigators did not identify these men until much later. That Bin al-Shibh attended the meeting, and it was discovered by the investigators by looking into his credit card records.

Sufaat was later arrested, but he denied that he knew any of the men and said that Hambali had arranged the meeting.

Do look at the facts, the planner of the 911 attack was a Pakistani with ties to Qatar KSM, the facilitators were Yemanis Attash and AlShibah, and the recruiting was done by a German Syrian Mohammed Haydar Zammar who was part of the Hamburg cell.

The German Connection

On November 1, 1998, future-hijackers Mohamed Atta an Egyptian member of Al-Qaeda and the leader of the hijackers, Marwan al-Shehhi an Emarati hijacker-pilot of United Airlines Flight 175, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh a Yemeni facilitator for AlQaeda moved into an apartment together on Marienstraße.

Here they formed the secretive Hamburg cell, which also included other participants in the 9/11 plot including Mohammed Haydar Zammar who recruited the hijackers.

They met together three or four times a week to discuss their strategy and the anti-American and anti-Israeli views that enabled them to recruit foot soldiers.

The 9/11 Commission Report notes in Chapter 5 that, “According to Bin al-Shibh now in U.S. custody, a chance meeting on a train in Germany caused the group to travel to Afghanistan instead. An individual named Khalid al Masri (or Khalid al-Masri) approached bin al-Shibh and Shehhi (because they were Arabs with beards, bin al-Shibh thinks) and struck up a conversation about jihad in Chechnya.

“When they later called Masri and expressed well in going to Chechnya, he told them to contact Abu Musab in Duisburg. Abu Musab turned out to be Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a significant Al-Qaeda operative who, even then, was well known to U.S. and German intelligence, though neither government apparently knew he was operating in Germany in late 1999”.

For me, that’s the load of non-sense as the sequence of events shows it was planned. Moreover, it makes no sense since Abu Musab is a key player and leading figure of Al-Qaeda who is well recognized since the med 80s, he was also on the most wanted lists of Saudi, Egyptian and American intelligence agencies at the time.

9/11 Hijackers and the Recruiter

Zammar’s family moved to Germany when he was 10, and he first tried to participate in armed conflict in 1982, far earlier than has previously been reported.

He traveled to Jordan in an attempt to enter Syria to join the armed wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Fighting Vanguard, which was engaged in an earlier uprising against the ruling Assad family.

He was turned back by the Jordanian authorities, but on the trip he met a man who would play a big role in his future: Mohammed al-Bahaiya, known as Abu Khaled al-Suri, who would later become a key figure in the current Syrian war.

Over the next decade, Zammar moved through the militant-Islamist circuit, traveling regularly to Afghanistan, volunteering for a stint with al-Qaeda-affiliated militants in the war in Bosnia and visiting London where he befriended the Jordanian Palestinian preacher Abu Qatada, a prominent figure long suspected by the United States of having links to Al-Qaeda.

Meanwhile, Zammar was developing a circle of followers at Hamburg’s al-Quds mosque, which had become a magnet for young Muslims in the city and eventually the hub of radicalization of young men and recruiting them as cannon fodder in the service of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Zammar says he failed to qualify as an imam or preacher at the mosque because he was unable to memorize the Koran, but he held regular gatherings with small groups of the men who went there to pray, seeking to convince them that they had a duty to wage jihad on behalf of Muslims worldwide and to travel to Afghanistan for military training.

The first member of the Hamburg cell, he remembers meeting Ramzi Binalshibh a known facilitator that outrank Zammar. Next he met Mohamed Atta, the hijackers’ ringleader, who piloted the first of the two planes that struck the World Trade Center towers.

Zammar recalls Atta as a “good guy” with “high moral standards”. Then came the others: Marwan al-Shehhi, a citizen of the United Arab Emirates who steered the plane that struck the second tower. Ziad Samir Jarrah, the Lebanese who piloted the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers overpowered the hijackers, and four others from the group whom Zammar also persuaded to travel to Afghanistan.

Zammar says, “It was not easy. It took time. They were studying at the university”, he said. “I was telling them, for example, someone is going to attack you, your honor, your property, while you cannot even use a pistol. There is no country in the world that does not have an army to defend itself, while we Muslims do not”.

Notice his words are that aligned with the creed of the Muslim Brotherhood. Zammar claims he didn’t know, obviously he is lying.

The hijackers arrival to the United States and the attacks of 9/11 zero hour

The first hijackers to arrive in the United States were Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, who settled in San Diego County, California, in January 2000.

They were followed by three hijacker-pilots, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah in mid-2000 to undertake flight training in South Florida.

The fourth hijacker-pilot, Hani Hanjour, arrived in San Diego in December 2000. The rest of the “muscle hijackers” arrived in early- and mid-2001. Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were both experienced and respected jihadists in the eyes of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

As for the pilots who would go on to participate in the attacks, three of them were original members of the Hamburg cell (Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah).

Following their training at Al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, they were chosen by Bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s military wing due to their extensive knowledge of western culture and language skills, increasing the mission’s operational security and its chances for success.

The fourth intended pilot, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, a member of the Hamburg cell, was also chosen to participate in the attacks yet was unable to obtain a visa for entry into the United States. He was later replaced by Hani Hanjour, a Saudi national.

Mihdhar and Hazmi were also potential pilot hijackers, but did not do well in their initial pilot lessons in San Diego. Both were kept on as “muscle” hijackers, who would help overpower the passengers and crew and allow the pilot hijackers to take control of the flights.

In addition to Mihdhar and Hazmi, thirteen other muscle hijackers were selected in late 2000 or early 2001. All were from Saudi Arabia, with the exception of Fayez Banihammad, who was from the United Arab Emirates.

The Root of all Evil

Please watch this video for the conclusion of what all I said. The root of all evil are Iran and Qatar.

It’s very evident and quite obvious that, a Muslim Brotherhood or popularly known as Ikhwanul-Muslimeen in the Arab world was the back-bone in terms of ideological upbringing and the armed-support of the terrorists and terrorist organizations. The international communities have to wake up to this reality and collectively defeat this ideology in order to defeat modern terrorism.

Khaled Homoud Alshareef holds PhD in Business and he earned Masters in Philosophy. He often writes about Islamism, Islamist factions and modern Terrorism. He tweets under @0khalodi0.

The support and financing of al-Qaeda by the Mullahs’ regime has played a key role in rebuilding its structure…

On Tuesday, January 12th, the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, at the National Press Club, released information at this club for Journalists in Washington D. C. about how the Islamic Republic of Iran has provided al-Qaeda with new operations centers. Due to the appeasement policy this information had previously bypassed the press. He described in detail the operation as to how Iran has become a safe haven for al-Qaeda leaders.  Documents related to Iran’s connection and providing shelter for al-Qaeda leaders have been the subject of international debate for the past two decades.

Over the past two decades, the relationship between the regime and Sunni fundamentalist groups has gone beyond a purely political, financial, and military one, and it has had an ideological factor associated with it. Qassem Soleimani oversaw relations with al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda military leaders remained in Tehran until 2015, after which Qassem Soleimani sent five of them, including Mohammed Al-Masri, to Damascus on a mission to contact ISIS forces and encourage them to secede from ISIS and join al-Qaeda.

During these years, the Quds Force organized al-Qaeda in Syria using the remnants of ISIS. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force under Khamenei, played a key role in coordinating Tehran-al-Qaeda relations and provided shelter for the bin Laden family and senior al-Qaeda commanders in Iran after the organization’s defeat in Afghanistan in 2001. Soleimani built a residential complex for them in the heart of an IRGC’s training garrison in Tehran. Last August, Abu Mohammad al-Masri, al-Qaeda’s number two figure, was killed in Tehran, which the regime initially denied, but later confirmed.

The support and financing of al-Qaeda by the Mullahs’ regime has played a key role in rebuilding its structure. “According to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), this organization had only 400 members during the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers and dispersed after the US invasion of Afghanistan, but with the rise of ISIS in 2013, Al-Qaeda, with the pursuit and efforts of Qassem Soleimani, also came to life.”.

Some of the details of Iran’s relationship with Al-Qaeda were obtained amid documents collected in the attack on Al-Qaeda’s headquarters in Pakistan.

According to one of the documents obtained, “a prominent member of Al-Qaeda wrote in a letter that Iran is ready to provide Al-Qaeda with everything it needs, including property, weapons, and Hezbollah’s training camp in Lebanon, in exchange for Al-Qaeda to attack US interests in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.”.

Another document states, “Iranian intelligence agencies have agreed to provide visas and facilities to Al-Qaeda forces and to shelter other Al-Qaeda members”. This was done through talks between the Iranians and Abu Hafs Al-Mauritania, one of the key figures in Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks.

The question is, why does the Iranian regime support Al-Qaeda?

Khamenei’s doctrine for his regime’s survival includes two policies: exporting terrorism to provide his regime with defense lines outside Iran’s borders and repression inside to prevent protests and uprisings. IRGC has a primary role in advancing both policies.

The IRGC’s Quds Force has had extensive terrorist interventions in various countries over the past two decades, such as Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and so on. The regime has also set up special units at its embassies in various countries and sent its trained special officers to assassinate dissidents abroad. An example of this is Assadollah Assadi, who, under the guise of a diplomat at the Iranian embassy in Austria, committed covert terrorist acts and was arrested. According to documents from the Belgian court in Antwerp, Assadi was the person who came up with the plot of the bomb transfer to the meeting of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

The Mullahs’ regime’s main concern is its survival and the crises they face for its overthrow. Therefore, the Mullahs need Al-Qaeda terrorist members to survive. And uses them as leverage to extort what they want in their dealings with the world and to interfere in the region.

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the middle east countries in general and Iran in particular.

With just eight days left in office for President Donald Trump, Pompeo is expected to offer details on how Iran has given safe haven to al Qaeda leaders and support for the group, the sources said, despite some skepticism within the intelligence community and Congress.

It was not immediately clear how much Pompeo intends to reveal in his speech to the National Press Club in Washington on Tuesday. He could cite declassified information on the killing of al Qaeda’s suspected second-in-command in Tehran in August, said the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The New York Times reported in November that Abu Muhammad al-Masri, accused of helping to mastermind the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa, was gunned down by Israeli operatives in Iran. Iran denied the report, saying there were no al Qaeda “terrorists” on its soil.

Iran has been a target throughout the Trump administration and Pompeo has sought to further ratchet up pressure on Iran in recent weeks with more sanctions and heated rhetoric.

Advisers to President-elect Joe Biden believe the Trump administration is trying to make it harder for him to re-engage with Iran and seek to rejoin an international deal on Iran’s nuclear program.

More Sanctions

Pompeo has accused Iran of links to al Qaeda in the past but has not provided concrete evidence.

“There have been times the Iranians have worked alongside al Qaeda,” then CIA director Pompeo said in October 2017.

Earlier accusations by the George W. Bush administration of Iranian links to al Qaeda’s Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States have been discredited. But reports have surfaced over the years of al Qaeda operatives hiding out in Iran.

A former senior U.S. intelligence official with direct knowledge of the issue said the Iranians were never friendly with al Qaeda before or after the Sept. 11 attacks and any claims of current cooperation should be viewed warily.

Shi’ite Iran and al Qaeda, a Sunni Muslim militant organization, have long been sectarian foes.

Relations between Tehran and Washington have deteriorated since 2018 when Trump abandoned Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal, which imposed strict curbs on its nuclear activities in return for the lifting of sanctions.

Since the beginning of his administration, Trump has imposed sanctions on Iranian officials, politicians and companies in an effort to force Tehran to negotiate a broader deal that further limits its nuclear work.

And more sanctions are expected before Trump leaves office, U.S. officials say.

While sanctions have sharply lowered Tehran’s oil exports and increased the economic hardship of ordinary Iranians, it has failed to bring Iran back to the negotiating table.

Biden has said the United States will rejoin the nuclear deal “if Iran resumes strict compliance.”

Based on inputs from Reuters.

“The group was planning to undertake terrorist attacks at vital installations in India with an aim to kill innocent people and strike terror in their minds,” the country’s main counter-terrorism arm said in a statement.

Those arrested “were motivated to undertake attacks at multiple places” including the capital region.

Six of the militants were arrested in the eastern state of West Bengal and while three in the southern state of Kerala, the NIA said, adding the individuals were “associated with Pakistan sponsored module of Al-Qaeda.”

A spokesman for Pakistan’s foreign office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pakistan has often denied giving material support to militants.

India has stepped up an offensive against militants in the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir and elsewhere.

Last year, Indian forces killed the leader of an Al-Qaeda-affiliated militant group in Kashmir, triggering protests in parts of the disputed region.

In the latest raids, the NIA seized sharp weapons, domestically made firearms and locally fabricated body armor. The nine militants will be produced in court for police custody and further investigation, the agency said.

The Saudi security services specialized in combating terrorism were able to execute a number of pre-emptive strikes against ISIS inside Saudi Arabia…

Contrary to what some media platforms want you to think, Saudi Arabia is one of the leading countries in its fight against all forms of terrorist organizations and extremist ideology of Islamist groups and individuals that threaten the peace and stability of society.

The Saudi government played a significant role in the war against the terrorist organization ISIS externally by taking part in the international coalition to fight ISIS, and internally by confronting its ideology and the extremist Islamist ideology in general.

Immediately after the rise of the ISIS terrorist organization, Saudi Arabia placed it on the terrorism list issued in 2014, which also included Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Al Qaeda in Yemen, Al Qaeda in Iraq, ISIS, Jabhat Al Nusra, Hezbollah branch of Saudi Arabia, The Muslim Brotherhood, the Houthi group, in addition to all the groups and currents contained in the lists of the Security Council and international bodies linked with known terrorist groups or linked to violent extremism.

Saudi Security forces responded to potential threats of the terrorist attacks by ISIS resulting in thwarting a number of terrorist attacks through pre-empting strikes and arresting a large number of supporters and sympathizers intending to carry out their crimes on Saudi soil.

The Saudi security services specialized in combating terrorism were able to execute a number of pre-emptive strikes against ISIS inside Saudi Arabia, that resulted in arresting more than 566 terrorists who formed into eight terrorist cells.

Among those arrested were six women (five Saudi and a Filipino), and five experts specializing in building of IED explosives and explosive belts, four in total three Saudis, and one Syrian (presumably the leading expert), were arrested, and a fifth was killed in a shootout.

The men worked as pawns for an operation ran by ISIS leadership in Syria and Iraq, aimed at stirring up sectarian strife and creating chaos via targeting Shiite and Sunni places of worship in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi security services investigations resulted in exposing the locations of six highly advanced explosives manufacturing plants ran by ISIS operatives, which was originally aimed at bombing civilian targets in Riyadh, Qassim and Qatif, in 14 separate terrorist attacks.

The arrested ISIS operatives were from different nationalities, who recruited young impressionable locals, Yemeni, Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, Algerian, Nigerian, Chadian, and others without identification documents (usually traveling using Qatari passports).

In April 2015 the Saudi Ministry of Interior announced a list that included the arrest of 93 people, including a woman, charged with being operatives of ISIS, dealing a major hit to the terrorist group’s plans in Saudi Arabia.

ISIS terrorists targeting Saudi Security forces officers and residential complexes, they carried assassination of military officer and carried out a suicide bombing inside the mosques.

Three months later, Saudi Ministry of Interior (MOI) announced the capture of an organized cluster cells arresting 431operatives, the majority of whom were home grown terrorist, and others holding other nationalities including Yemeni, Egyptian, Syrian, Jordanian, and Algerian.

This resulted in thwarting more than 10 terrorist attacks that targeted mosques and the headquarters of a diplomatic mission, a number of security forces officers, security and government installations.

On 25th September, the Saudi security services announced the success of a raid on two different sites in Riyadh region, the first in the Munsiyah district, a residential unit, and the second was a Cabin house in the small town of Dhurma.

As the housing unit was raided the terrorists Ahmed and Muhammad al-Zahrani opened fire on police officers, and grenades were thrown at the security officers. They were successfully subdued and arrested by the security officers.

The Dhurma raid, resulted in a finding of a factory for yet another making explosives and IEDs. Later that month, the security forces managed to uncover a terrorist cell consisting of six people, and they were arrested in simultaneous security operations in Riyadh and Dammam.

Four terrorists were arrested, two terrorists were killed after they started shooting at the security officers. Few days later, the security forces carried out a qualitative operation on yet another factory for manufacture of explosives and explosive belts.

One of the operatives of ISIS, Yasser Muhammad Shafiq al-Barazi (Syrian), converted his house to an explosives factory in which explosive materials and explosive belts were manufactured and prepared to carry out attacks.

He and a Filipino woman who cooperated with him, staying with him irregularly in the same house, were arrested.

On 8th August 2016, the Security Communications Unit received (990) call from a citizen stating that his wife had left the country with three of their children (the eldest is 10 years old, and the youngest is two years old), and is accompanied by two of her sisters, one of them has four of her children (the oldest is six years old, and the youngest is one year old), in order to join ISIS in Syria. It was later proved that the aforementioned women left the country and arrived in Beirut where they were arrested before joining ISIS.

On 17th December 2016, the security forces, through their investigation and monitoring of suspected terrorist sympathizers exposed a terrorist network consisting of three cluster cells linked to ISIS that planned attacks against citizens, scientists and security officials, military and economic installations in various locations across Saudi Arabia.

The number of arrested members was 17 ISIS operatives, including a woman, all of whom were of Saudi nationality, except for three, a Yemeni, an Egyptian and a Palestinian.

These arrests foiled four significant terrorist plots at advanced stages of preparation, the first of which aimed at targeting an official from the Saudi Ministry of Defense in Riyadh.

The second was targeting the exit of the trainee students in the training city of General Security Forces, as they planned to place an explosive device at the gates to be detonated remotely during the presence of 100s of trainees.

The third was stopping of the the delivery of two explosive belts aimed to blow up civilians. The fourth of which was thwarted by the security forces where a female suicide bomber and the person incharge of suicide bombers Nassar Abdullah Muhammad Al-Mousa, a Saudi national, was arrested in possession of an explosive belt and another explosive device, aimed to blow up religious sites in Al-Ahsa, and a National Guard post.

The security forces continued to achieve success in the pre-emptive strikes in the announcement by the Ministry of Interior as they arrested 14 terrorists (10 Saudis, two Pakistanis, a Syrian and a Sudanese) who formed a terrorist cell in the rural town of Shaqra, as their arrangements reached advanced stages to target a number of security men working With different security authorities in the areas of Riyadh, Tabuk, and the Eastern province.

While the four foreigners were about to carry out a terrorist operation using a car bomb on 60,000 seats Al-Jawhara Stadium in Jeddah during a match between the teams of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

ISIS was defeated, yet we remain vigilant and strong in the war on terrorism and extremist ideology. May God have mercy on the souls of the victims of the evil terrorist attacks and the brave men who gave their lives to keep us safe.

Khaled Homoud Alshareef holds PhD in Business and he earned Masters in Philosophy. He often writes about Islamism, Islamist factions and modern Terrorism. He tweets under @0khalodi0.

Nearly 800 Islamist Imams were arrested in a heavily criticized campaign by the west.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula or in the Land of the Two Holy Mosques—is the Saudi branch of the global Jihad organization.

It was founded in the late 1990s by Suleiman Al-Awdah’s pupil, Youssef Al-Ayyari, known as “Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula”, it was a byproduct of the “Awakening” movement in Saudi Arabia, the group launched its activities mainly focusing on recruiting youth.

The Group plotted against the Saudi Government under the pretext of objecting to the American and international role in the liberation of Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion and the subsequent American presence in the region. The leading figure behind it all was Abdullah AlHamid.

3️⃣The Group plotted against the Saudi Government under the pretext of objecting to the American and international role in the liberation of Kuwait from the Iraqi invasion and the subsequent American presence in the region.
The leading figure behind it all was Abdullah AlHamid pic.twitter.com/r0YzInB0B3

— Khaled Homoud Alshareef ?? Saudi? (@0khalodi0) April 26, 2020

The “peaceful” sit-ins, that AlHamid led with the political arm of the “Sahwa” movement did not resort to violence on the surface, but the movement’s takfiri speechs and their calls for armed Jihad through the mosques, audio cassettes and books.

The militant arm of the group at the time was Al-Qaeda. Young man from the awakening group Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman Al-Hudhaif is called by pouring an incendiary substance into a colonel in the General Investigation Department called Saud Al-Shibreen resulting in his death.

The Islamists received the news of the execution of Al-Hudhaif angrily and called him a martyr, and the guest became a symbol for the Islamists. The Islamists accused the Saudi government of opening the “door to bloodshed”.

A group of Al-Qaeda followers were: Riyadh Al-Hajri, Khaled Al-Saeed, Abdul Aziz Al-Mutam, and Musleh Al-Shamrani who stated that he said: “By God, we will not be men if we do not take revenge for (Sheikh Abdullah) .”

The retaliation came in the form of a cowardly terrorist attack on November 13, 1995 by a booby-trapped car weighing 100 kilograms that targeted a compound used by the American Army vinyl company working to train National Guard staff in Riyadh.

As a result of the attack, five Americans, an Indian were killed, and nearly 60 others were wounded. After the Riyadh bombing. In January 1998, the Security Forces arrested a group of armed men equipped with Sager anti-tank missiles in southern Saudi Arabia.

Al-Qaeda wanted to use the missile smuggled from Yemen to target the American consulate in Jeddah during the visit of the Vice President of the United States Al Gore to Saudi Arabia.

According to US and Saudi official sources, Osama bin Laden was behind the plan to target the American consulate in Jeddah, and directed Abdul Rahim Al-Nashiri to lead the operation .

Upon discovering the plot, the Saudi government responded with a swift arrest campaign targeting the Islamists leadership and Imams calling for violence. Nearly 800 Islamist Imams were arrested in a heavily criticized campaign by the west.

1️⃣2️⃣Upon discovering the plot, the Saudi government responded with a swift arrest campaign targeting the Islamists leadership and imams calling for violence . nearly 800 Islamists Imam were arrested in a heavily criticised campaign by the west. pic.twitter.com/wGW7nMNtod

— Khaled Homoud Alshareef ?? Saudi? (@0khalodi0) April 26, 2020

The Saudi government was determined to put an end to the extremist group and sent Chief of General Intelligence Prince Turki al-Faisal to Kandahar in Afghanistan to pressure Mullah Omar to hand over Osama bin Laden to the Saudi authorities.

Al-Qaeda admitted in the Voice of Jihad magazine in 2004 that many Islamists who had returned from “Jihad” in Bosnia and Herzegovina were arrested in relation of the missile smuggling case that occurred in January 1998.

A second attempt was made in 1998 to smuggle Strella-2 missiles by Egyptian Islamists via Yemen, they planned to transfer the missiles to Saudi Arabia to shoot down American and Egyptian aircrafts, the Saudi government responded to this plan by arresting 300 Islamists.

Osama bin Laden acknowledged at a press conference in Afghanistan in May 1998 that he had seized the missiles, but he boasted that the missiles that were found were much less than what had not been found.

The founder of the military council of Al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Ali Al-Faqsi Al-Ghamdi, blamed the leaders of the Sahwa “Islamic Awakening”.

Al-Faqsi said that “inciting them to violence and charging them with enthusiasm and passionate emotions towards conflict areas in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Chechnya, as well as the religious climate in society in the 90s, within a set of reasons, which led him to prison.”

An Iranian Revolutionary Guards official recently admitted that “since then, Iran has been present at the intersection and cooperation with Al-Qaeda in Bosnia, under the cover of the Iranian Red Crescent.”

During an exclusive interview with Iranian television on May 30, 2018, Iranian Judicial Aide Mohammad Javad Larijani revealed that “Iran has facilitated the passage of Al-Qaeda militants who carried out the attacks of September 11, 2001 in New York,” according to Al-Arabiya.

The preachers who remained avoided prison, because they were less influential or kept a low profile, kept the awakening soul alive in their minds of their followers when they restored to a less confrontational approach by rebranding themselves and the group.

The Sahwa movement has been renamed the Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association abbreviated as Hasm; a Saudi non-governmental human rights association.

Abdullah AlHamid, Salman Alouda and other Sahwa leading figures started to distancing themselves from the usual process of instigation, recruitment and operations. But that’s a story for another day, where I will talk in depth about the Academy of Change—Qatar and Turkey.

Khaled Homoud Alshareef holds PhD in Business and he earned Masters in Philosophy. He often writes about Islamism, Islamist factions and modern Terrorism. He tweets under @0khalodi0.

The two key concepts these thinkers borrowed from Leninism were the “state” and “revolution”.

Radical and revolutionary Islam, which emerged as reactions to colonialism, were inspired more by socialist values than by liberal democratic values, and they formulated their principles in line with this outlook. It was common in the Islamic world until the 1980s to consider Islam as a source of ideology as well as a revolutionary ideology.

It was particularly the Iranian revolution, which became and inspirational reference for Islamic movements at that time. In this period, Islam was taken by Muslim thinkers of Iranian origin as well as by those of North African origin, almost as a kind of state religion, a revolutionary ideology, and a theocratic political structure.

Such interpretations of Islam can be traced back, in the case of some North African countries, to the period between the second half of the nineteenth century and up to the first half of the twentieth century.

At that point in time, Muslim countries began to suffer a long period of painful setback in the face of the incredible economic growth and development western countries were experiencing. 

Moreover, the colonial ambitions of western countries directly over Islamic territories evoked strong reactions from Muslim thinkers of North Africa who began to think in terms of Leninism. This explains a great deal about the distance, which Muslims began to feel toward liberalism, democracy, capitalism, and other similar systems and ideas.

The two key concepts these thinkers borrowed from Leninism were the “state” and “revolution”. It was in their view, the state that symolized social justice, social unity, and the struggle against the West. Such a state could only be established through revolution, this being under the leadership of a pioneering group.

The works of Sayyid Qutb, an Egyptian Islamic intellectual who was hanged by the Nasser regime in 1966, for instance, emphasize the role of a revolutionary group. 

Largely on account of his Leninist background, Qutb envisaged the establishment of an Islamic state by means of a revolution led by a specially trained group versed in Islamic values. The project towards the creation of such a group, indeed, can be seen as an attempt to replace Lenin’s proletariat vanguards with their Muslim counterparts. For Qutb, the salvation of Muslims, as well as the entirety of humanity depended on an Islamic state that would represent a third way, i.e., an alternative to socialism and capitalism.

Although critical of socialism, many Islamic intellectuals, as in the case of Sayyid Qutb, operated on values that might be combined with a Leninist style of state socialism in some form through its emphasis on collective brotherhood, revolution, equality, salvation, a centralized state, anticapitalism, and antidemocracy amongst others.

Hence, both authoritarian regimes and Muslim intellectuals with a first-hand experience of colonial domination completely refused the West, and sought to set up alternative institutions, which were authoritarian in character. 

When realizing the traditional interpretations of Islam fell short of enabling the deployment of adequate means by which to resolve existing problems, they began to borrow concepts and perspectives from Russian socialism, which was anticapitalist and antiliberalist in character, to develop an Islamic myth as an alternative.

Thought the writer is writing from the perspective of explaining the lack of democracy, or opposition to democracy in the Muslim lands, his analysis of the origins of ideologies based upon the notions of “state” and “revolution” and borrowed from Russian Bolshevism are extremely accurate.

This can be seen in the likes of Abu A’la Mawdudi and very clearly in the writings of Sayyid Qutb.

Excerpt taken from Islam and the West, Critical Perspectives on Modernity” (compiled by Michael Thompson), Omer Caha writes (pp. 44-45).